The Facebook phone rumors have resurfaced, this time with the weight of The New York Times behind the reports. Anonymous Facebook employees and others familiar with the company’s plans suggest it will bring its own smartphone to the market by next year. The project is code-named “Buffy” and is being taken seriously by Facebook, despite a name inspired by a movie, TV show, and comic book.

Times’ sources say Project Buffy started as a partnership with HTC, but has expanded to include “other smartphone projects, creating a team of seasoned hardware engineers who have built the devices before.” To whit, Facebook has hired several former iPhone engineers from Apple, who were peppered with questions about the inner workings of smartphones by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg.

When reached for comment, all Facebook was willing to say was, “”We’re working across the entire mo…………… continues on InformationWeek

When it comes to smartphones, I’m an iPhone guy. But I’ve long appreciated HTC’s Android phones.

The first Android phone I really liked was the Google Nexus One, which was made by HTC. I also was a big fan of the Nexus One’s sibling, the Droid Incredible.

But over the past year or so, HTC has struggled to make phones that stood out in the increasingly crowded Android marketplace. It’s lost share to Samsung, which has focused on phones with jumbo, brilliantly lit screens.

Now HTC is trying to stage a comeback. Earlier this year, it announced a new flagship line of phones dubbed One. The first two models in the line, the One S and the One X, recently hit store shelves at T-Mobile and AT&T, respectively.

I’ve been testing out both phones and generally like what I’ve seen. I don’t consider either one a must-have…………… continues on Long Beach Press-Telegram